Week 3 Catch Up (Nights 1 to 3) – Charity Challenge Update

I’m a little late getting this Extra Life Charity Challenge update up and I’m sorry about that! Rachel and I have both been sick and I was away in Philadelphia for the weekend that has made keeping up with our challenge, well challenging. But we’re back and we’ve been playing multiple games every day to keep up with our timeline.

To remind everyone why we’re here – Rachel and I are playing board games every day this month to raise money for Toronto’s Sick Kids hospital. To learn more or to donate check out our 2017 Charity Challenge Page.

We are now entering Week 3 and Rachel is currently winning 2 weeks to 0. Head on games wise Rachel is up 6 game wins to 4. I need to win this week or it’s all over. I plan on going full on! Let’s see how the games went on nights 1 through 3.

Night 1 – Flamme Rouge

Since I lost last week I get to pick the first game of the week and I’ve decided to go with Flamme Rouge. Flamme Rouge is a cycle racing game released this year that combines deck building and racing. Every player controls two riders; a Rouleur who is sort of your long run slow and steady guy and a Sprinteur who is your sprinter who can go very fast for a very short amount of time. Every round you draw 4 cards from a deck related to each of your cyclists and you choose how many spaces you move using the available cards. Once you use a card it leaves the game, so if you sprint early using big moves on your Sprinteur you won’t be able to burst towards the finish line at the end. To learn more about the game check out this Shut Up and Sit Down video.

I picked this game because we’ve only played it a few times before and Rachel has never managed to win (like I said, I’m going hard this week!) and I thought I had solved a pretty decent strategy to win. Turns out it wasn’t going to be that simple! In the first of our best of three Rachel pulled ahead and managed to hold her position through the first turn. I managed to catch up and challenge in the middle portion of the race but in the end Rachel was victorious.

In game two I came out in to an early lead. I wanted to be aggressive and I decided I would establish and hold that lead. The problem with that is I ended up running my sprinter a little hard in the early race and by the time I got to the end Rachel’s sprinter managed to blow past me just beating me over the line! Oh no, I was supposed to win this game easily. On to the next one!

Night 2 – Custom Heroes

Well my Flamme Rouge plan didn’t work. So I’ve decided to play a new strategy, I’ve decided I would table a game I picked up at PAX Unplugged, that Rachel had never played before: Custom Heroes. Custom heroes is a ladder game with a twist. A ladder game is one of those card games where if someone plays 3 two’s you need to play 3 cards of a higher value. The difference with Custom Heroes is you can upgrade cards as you go, so the card pool slowly becomes more powerful and interesting. You can learn more about the game in this Dice Tower video.

We did a teaching game and Rachel took too and liked the game almost immediately. When it came time for the competition game we had a super intense back and fourth and at any point either of us could have won. In the end I pushed through and managed to secure my first win of week 3!

Night 3 – Hive

If there’s one type of game that Rachel beats me at with regularity its abstract games. Abstract games are basically puzzles that usually have a relatively thin theme. Chess is the original abstract game. For Night 3 Rachel picked Hive, a game where she has a pretty solid leg up on me. In Hive you and the other player build a hive using various pieces that are styled after bugs. But like in chess the difference pieces/bugs can only move in specific ways. The goal is to capture the other player’s Queen Bee by surrounding it.

We had a big back and fourth playing Hive in this session. We decided to play this best 2 out of 3 and I took the first game but lost the second to Rach. It all came down to game three and it was an intense match. We usually play this game pretty attacking, just driving to surround the Queen. This game we were defending, pushing and pulling. It was probably the most fun game of Hive we’ve ever played. In the end I managed to take the win! For the first time in the competition I managed to take a game Rachel picked, which means I won two games back to back. Is this the start of my turn around? Oh yeah!